Single quotation marks (why they’re single and should be lonely)

Fiction writers: Put your hands up and move away from those single quotation marks.

Sometimes I see writers use single quotation marks around a word to show irony, to show the word is a nickname, or to show it’s a weird or unfamiliar term. By American punctuation standards, that’s downright unpatriotic.

Use double quotation marks instead:

Our “conversation” was Lucy scolding me nonstop for five minutes.

I met Harry “Big Head” Handley when he sat in front of me in English class.

My teacher referred to my fidgeting as “antsy-pantsy-wiggle-isms.” He would often interrupt class to say, “Mary, cease and desist with your antsy-pantsy-wiggle-isms.” (Note: Once you set off a weird word with quotation marks, you don’t have to do it again.)

Also:

When you write about the word as the word itself: I just learned what “vituperate” means. (You can also choose to italicize the word.)

When to use single quotation marks:

If you’re writing a quote within a quote: Larry said, “She was furious. She told me, ‘Larry, you’re a low-down, stinking, rotting skunk.’ ” (Note: Look where the period is located. The period always goes within the first quotation mark—unless you’re British. American writing style differs from British writing in several ways, including the use of single and double quotation marks.)

Or if there’s a quote within a newspaper or magazine headline: President vetoes ‘idiotic bill’

For fiction writing, that’s pretty much all you need to know about single quotation marks. Used correctly, you might see fewer of them on your pages.